Simple Neurite Tracer (now simply SNT) and Sholl Analysis are the most popular Fiji plugins for semi-automated segmentation and analysis of neuronal structures. I am excited to announce that both these programs have evolved to more complete tools, that are now IJ2-aware.

If you want to use these improvements, you can do so by subscribing to the Neuroanatomy update site (bugs are likely to exist, please report them). Importantly, the development of the current versions of these programs, i.e., those bundled by default with Fiji, has stalled, and will be deemed deprecated in the future.

For those of you interested, here are some of the highlights of the features already implemented:

SNT:

Support for multidimensional images (including multichannel, and those with a time axis)

Paths can now be edited. The new Path Manager allows for paths to be tagged, searched and filtered

Multi-threaded tracing, including a new option to perform background tracing on a second, non-displayed image

Tracing can be interleaved with image processing routines

SNT plugins: SNT now features a plugin mechanism for more functionality: Currently there are plugins for conversion of tracings into ROIs, generation of masks from traces, and statistical analysis of morphometric measurements

New GUI with extensive options and shortcuts

Preliminary support for sub-pixel accuracy, and many other optimizations

Sholl:

Interactive prompt with more control over curve fitting: Including settings for determination of ‘best fit’ and fits to polynomial of arbitrary degree